Design and Art Australia Online

cartoonist, painter, illustrator, mural painter, sculptor, community artist, writer and environmentalist, was born on 17 March 1958. A surfboard riding enthusiast who hates towns – except for the coffee, as she is also a caffeine addict – she was working as a freelance artist from a house near the sea in rural South Australia in 1999. Her cartoons, usually signed 'O’Brien’ preceded by the copyright symbol, have been included in many group exhibitions, including the 1993-94 national touring Black+White+Green (initiated by Perc Tucker Gallery, Townsville). In 1993 she had a solo show Trigger (on the Loose) at the Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, which toured the state under the South Australian Touring Exhibitions Program. She has been in international cartoon festivals in Portugal and France and included in international cartoon anthologies. Her work is much admired by fellow women cartoonists.

O’Brien’s book of cartoons CONsequences (Wakefield Press, 1990), introduced by Kaz Cooke, is mainly about neurotic losers – both people and places. She describes herself in it as 'probably the first South Australian woman cartoonist to publish a book of her work. A committed environmentalist, she prefers to use humour, rather than the soap-box, to convey serious messages about our damaged planet and damaged lives. Presently artist-in-residence at a prison for young offenders, she is also a painter and muralist of considerable repute.’

O’Brien began working on community murals for housing estates in London in 1979-80. Her South Australian murals have been done for prisons, libraries, inner city buildings and schools, and she also paints on trucks and surfboards. They include: the Tunnel Vision mural project on a tunnel under the railway in 1996, done with the rural communities of Coonalpyn and Coomandook, SA; The Women’s Suffrage Centenary Mural, 1994, carried out with senior girls at Paralowie R12 school, Adelaide; a 1988 Bicentennial mural for the Emergency Housing Office, Adelaide, done with young people; a mural at Northfield Women’s prison, Adelaide (1984-85); and The Women and The Arts Festival mural in the Domain, Sydney (1980-83) done with professional artists Carol Ruff, Jan Mackay, Marie McMahon and Nora Bindul. She has been an artist-in-residence at many places since 1980, including the Riverland Women’s Shelter (1994).

Barbary O’Brien began publishing cartoons in 1989 when she designed posters, video illustrations and exhibitions for newspapers, community arts’ groups, prisons and other venues. In 1992 she worked with Students at Risk (Paralowie School) on a project, Get Real, which used cartoons to explore causes of truancy in female adolescents. This led to a publication of the same title. In 1993, along with 25 other feminists, O’Brien participated in the exhibition Hysterical Women: A Collection of 100 Australian Feminist Cartoons, Perth: Women’s Electoral Lobby (WA), initiated by Rona Chadwick. She drew cartoons for Adelaide's monthly Lesbian Times throughout its existence (1992-94), including the cover of no.4 (June 1992) showing a lesbian woman in bed torturing her partner with cold feet.

O’Brien outlined her views on cartooning in this issue:

“since I’ve been drawing for other people for a living, I’ve noticed that I am a good 5 days into a holiday before I start drawing for recreation. I also notice that I struggle with the supposed ethics of producing an image that has no ideological or political sub text… After a while, once I’ve done lots of landscapes or visual jokes about my friends, I am recharged and able to find fun in my work, both for me and those I work with. The bottom line in my process therefore, is to look after myself first… This philosophy operates for all of us, whatever we do. It is particularly useful for me to remember because most of my career I’ve chosen to work in so-called 'difficult’ arenas, where alternative and creative methods of seeing and working are at a premium and catalysts for positive change are vital.”

The magazine included a regular strip by O’Brien Thelma and Louise. It began with a single cartoon in issue no.4 in which the women emerge wet but unharmed from their plunge into the ravine in the last scene in the movie, with Louise asking '“THELMA... How much money you got?”’ In subsequent issues, the concept was expanded into a full-page comic dominated by storylines in which Thelma and Louise live out their feminist fantasies in Mexico.

In 1994 O’Brien illustrated The Law Handbook for the Legal Services Commission and in 1996, working with Port Youth and the Kura Yerio Aboriginal Community Centre, she produced the Port Youth Theatre Workshop booklet Look: designs on young people to explain young people’s consumer rights. The following year she illustrated, designed and was chief compiler of Seen and Heard: a foolproof guide to the youth vote, a Youth Affairs Council of SA project carried out with Ollie Black.

In July 1997 O’Brien organised The Cartoon Show, an exhibition of works by more than 30 Australian cartoonists at the Noarlunga Community Arts Centre, SA. The artists included Judy Horacek, Joan Rosser, David Pope (Heinrich Heinze), Rona Chadwick, Gaynor Cardew, Sue Wicks, Glen le Lievre, Michael Atchison, Peter Broelman and Angie Lyndon. That year she also worked with children at Raukkan Aboriginal School (SA) on a mural depicting aspects of school and community life and with the Port Youth Theatre Workshop on It’s Gotta Stop, a project carried out with young Aboriginal children exploring feelings of assertiveness and aggression. In 1999 she continued to work with youth prisons, youth health centres, drop-in centres and schools with the assistance of a Community Cultural Development Fellowship from the Australia Council. She believes that cartoons are

“one of the few truly effective ways to bring the untouchable to accountability. They are the contemporary court jester. They are fun. They can get away with things few other art forms can, and with a bit of encouragement anyone can grasp the medium well enough to get a vital point across.” (letter to JK 1999)

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007